“Seriously, Hawk, take this.” I grabbed the water bottle I’d tucked in the side pocket of my backpack and held it out to him. “You’re gasping. Heatstroke…”
Hawk took the water bottle obediently, but he didn’t open it. “It’snotheatstroke! I’m trying to explain…” He exhaled sharply. “See, things ended up getting really fraught. So fraught I thought they were going to anticipate their vows right there in the Longbourn rose garden. But they didn’t. Because virginity and all, you know?”
“Yeah. They made a big deal about that stuff back then for no good reason.” I rolled my eyes. “The whole concept of virginity as a social construct is weird. I mean, if you’re attracted to someone and you care about them, what’s the problem?”
“Right.Right!” The words came out in a squeak, and I was tempted to grab him by the arm to force him to stop walking and rest. “I’m so glad you agree with me about this! Because in the next chapter, they end up on this madcap carriage trip to Gretna Green in search of Lydia and Wickham, which meant they had to stay at inns along the way and pretend to be married for propriety’s sake, and this author used the ‘only one bed’ schtick, which you know is my kryptonite, and the whole time, they’re like, so perfectly suited to one another that the only thing missing is that they’re not having sex, and I was ready to throw my book at the wall and scream, ‘Dear god, what are you people waiting for?’You know?”
“Uh-huh. Totally.” I kept my eyes trained on the pinecones on the ground—slippery fuckers—and on Hawk’s hiking boots. Hawk wasn’t watching where he was walking at all now. Someone was gonna fall off the trail if he wasn’t careful.
“And then it hit me thatIwas Elizabeth. Elizabeth wasme. A-and… long story short… What I’m trying to say is…” He sucked in a deep breath and blurted desperately, “Jack, will you please pop my cherry?”
“Whaaa—ooof!” My boot slid out from under me, and I lurched sideways.
Hawk spun toward me in surprise, but when he moved to catch me, he caught me in the side with his trekking pole, tangling us together. Time slowed, and for a single moment, I stared into his shocked brown eyes… and then I hit him with the full weight of my body and sent the two of us tumbling into a pile of jagged pinecones just as Conrad and Greta Pilkner rounded the bend coming down the slope.
“I didn’t mean… right this minute,” Hawk said in a pained gasp.
Okay, maybeIwas the one suffering from heatstroke. In fact, I had to be. Because there was no way my Hawk, with his wide, innocent eyes and sunshine smile, could possibly have said anything about?—
“Cherries?” Conrad shouted in his usual overly effusive manner. “Hawkins, did you say you two were popping cherries? I thought cherry season was over this far north!”
Greta tutted and pulled at her husband’s shoulder to whisper something in his ear.
“Ohhhhhh!” Conrad shouted again. “Thatkind of cherry popping.” He chuckled. “Well, then. Nice weather for it, boys!”
I glanced down at Hawk. His face was ten serrano peppers on the Scoville scale, and he had pinecone scratches all up his arm. He struggled to pull his pole out from under my leg and ended up elbowing me in the jaw.
If I hadn’t already felt like the whole world had tilted on its axis, that would’ve done it.
“Fuck, Hawk! Stay still. Stay still, dammit.” I rolled, trapping his flailing limbs beneath me.
Grettatsked as she passed us, dragging her husband further down the trail toward the parking area. “Language, Jack Wyatt! And kindly remember, this is apublichiking path!”
I stared after them for a few seconds, waiting for the world to come back into focus, and then Hawk squirmed beneath me—beneath me—which was the moment I realized that I was lying fully on top of him, the full length of my body sprawled indulgently over the full length of his.
I stared down into his honey-brown eyes, which were looking up at me with love and affection and—ah, fuck—want. “Shit.” I started to roll off him, but he freed his hands and grabbed at my shoulders, holding me in place while blinking rapidly.
“It’s okay! Seriously, Jack, I’m fine! Could you just stay still and listen for a second?” He swallowed hard. “Look, I know maybe this is a bit of a, um… surprise? But it doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s just… I hadn’t intended to stay a virgin this long, and I realized that I keepreadingabout this stuff but never experiencing it, a-and I decided that I wanted to. To experience it, I mean. A-and I’ve been thinking for a while—kind of a long while, really—that you’d be the perfect person to experience it with. I want it to be… well, notspecial-special, exactly, but… nice. And I know you’re not, like, in love with me or whatever…” He bit his lip. “Unless… I mean… Are you, by any chance?”
“What?No!” I gasped.
“Right!” he agreed quickly. “No, right. Of course not!Same. But sex doesn’t have to mean a relationship or love or whatever, right? I just think, in an ideal world, my first time should be with someone I think is reallyhot—which, like, have you seen you?—and also someone I trust, and I trust you more than anyone. So.” He shrugged, as much as a person trapped against a bed of pinecones could shrug, and stared up at me beseechingly. “What do you say?”
“Erk!” I squawked. My heart was beating in my throat so hard I couldn’t get any actual words out.Wasthis heatstroke? Was I hallucinating? Was I dying?
Hawk thought I washot? Hawk wanted…? Withme?
Hawk continued as if my squawk hadn’t been a clear refusal. “Maybe don’t answer me now, okay? I know you probably need time to think about it and, like… plan it or whatever. I mean, notplanit, plan it, since obviously you know the, ah… mechanics and whatnot. I remember Peter, that smug asshole you dated for a couple weeks last year, bragging about you being a ‘demon’ in bed—which, not gonna lie, left me with a whole lot of questions I’d really like you to answer. And Donny Whatshisface, the guy I saw you with at the Stag and Crowne back in March, who must’ve had, like, forty-seven hands, couldn’t stop groping you in public and whispering all the stuff he liked you to do to him in a voice that wasnota whisper?—”
“Hawk,” I groaned, my face going hotter than it had been while we were hiking, which was weird because all the blood in my body had rushed south.
“No, right, sorry. Tangent. My bad. Anyway, I was thinking we could get tested… o-or if you’d rather use condoms, I’m open to discussion?—”
“Hawk,” I insisted, belatedly rolling away to flop onto my back… only for him to sit up and continue talking while peering down at me.
“Okay, maybe not adiscussion,per se,” he said, more desperately than ever, “since clearly talking about this is making you more uncomfortable than Donny with the hands ever did, so you just tell me which you’d prefer, and it’s all good with me! See how simple and straightforward this will be? You’re basically my favorite person. And we’ve been friends forever—I’m helping you fix up your house, you helped me with my car when it had that timing belt issue—so, why not help me with this, too?”
“Hawk!” I sat up also, putting more distance between us, not that it did anything to dispel the images that were taking over my brain of all the ways I could “help” Hawk.
